The Coffee Man Book – Bridge in Ethiopia
$60,000 donated
To date, more than $60,000 AUD has been raised from donations from Project Origin and from sales of The Coffee Man book to build the bridge in Guji.
The first stage of the bridge has been completed, with foundations on one bank close to completion and the plans for the rest of the bridge signed off by engineers.
I visited the site in December 2018, along with a team of coffee professionals and friends so that they could see the work being undertaken. We look forward to seeing further developments in the building of the bridge, and how it helps the local community!
Thank you to the following people whose donations The Coffee Man Kickstarter campaign helped us complete the first stage of the bridge:
Firdaus Omar
Patrick Tam
Cara Leong
Frankie Shi
Benjamin Schuetz
Michael Harris Conlin
Julien Latil
Chih-Te Lin
Vik Sundar
Mia Zhang
Noppadol Weerakitti
Baptiste Mourey
Alexei T
Jamie Wilson
Tim Adams
Rex Tseng
Jason Moses
Evan Schaefer
Harry Trondhjem
Peter Lee
Bram Duismann
Dr Martin Endlein
Carmel
Brenda S
Delays
Heavy, seasonal rains have delayed the progress of the bridge build. At the moment it is more dangerous than ever for the local people to cross this river and most will have to walk on a four-hour (or more) round trip to cross at a safe place.
More than ever it is important for us to continue on this project, to help the community and ensure the safety and prosperity of its people.
Planning
We have begun planning the bridge to cross the river near Mesina, Guji with our friend Meseret and the team at Primrose coffee exporters. We aim to work together over the coming months to ensure that we engage local builders and contractors in order to get this bridge built!
There have been many discussions in terms of how and why the bridge will be constructed: will it be a pedestrian bridge, or should it support vehicles? Do we need to account for seasonal flooding? What is the maximum weight load that the bridge should bear?
When we are answering all of these questions, it is most important that we receive the input of the local community so that we can best cater to their needs and the functionality they require in a bridge such as this.
We will keep you updated with location photos, planning and construction as we begin this exciting project!
The river
I have been lucky enough to travel to Ethiopia on many occasions during my time working with coffee and I am always blown away by the people and the coffees I encounter. Most recently, I travelled with the team from Project Origin to visit communities past the town of Mesina, in southern Ethiopia.
We discovered some incredible coffees in this region and met some even more incredible people. As we explored the region, we travelled in a 4WD – however, I noticed that most people travelled by foot or with donkeys and carts. This isn’t uncommon in this area, but I saw that many people were transporting coffee manually along the riverside.
When I asked our friends why these people were carrying the coffee so far, they explained that the nearest river crossing by foot was nearly four hours walk away – so each person would have to walk four hours each way in a day to transport coffee or to reach the community opposite and return home.
We often take for granted certain privileges such as cars, roads and being able to travel to see our friends and family with ease. For the people in these communities, the reality is that crossing this river is just a part of life, but also takes up so much of their time and energy.
After a lot of discussion, we decided that we would help to build a bridge across the river at a point that it is most needed by the local communities. The plan was that we would use the proceeds from the publication of my book, The Coffee Man: Journal of a World Barista Champion to fund the construction of the bridge – this way, those who had purchased the book were directly contributing to aiding the people of these Ethiopian communities!